City to hold a workshop about its development standards and the region's historical use of sludge applied to farmland in Southwest Riverside County

A growing number of residents have become more and more vocal about concerns surrounding Menifee’s controversial history with the application of biosolids -- aka sludge -- to farmlands as a fertilizer, and officials are hoping a workshop planned Tuesday will help the city put the issue to rest once and for all.

Scheduled to start at 4 p.m. before Menifee’s regular City Council meeting, the workshop will feature a number of speakers that Interim City Manager Rob Johnson has gathered with an eye on educating the general public about sludge -- a mixture of human, household and industrial wastes treated at a sewage plant that some say is harmful.

Topics will include Riverside County’s historical use of sludge, Menifee’s development application standards and community concerns, which include the city opting against renewing its contract with the Riverside County Department of Environmental Health not long after its incorporation in 2008.

Menifee Biosolid Workshop

What: An update on current development application standards and the historical use of biosolids -- AKA sludge -- in Menifee.

When: 4 p.m. Tuesday

Where: City Hall at 29714 Haun Road in Menifee

In addition to the panelists -- who will include John Watkins, deputy director of Riverside County's Department of Environmental Health; and Dan Johnson, a consultant for the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the Environmental Protection Agency -- the city also will present a map showing a handful of parcels where sludge was approved to be dumped in Menifee before 2004.

With a number of scientists and environmental experts reporting a correlation of sewage sludge and other contaminants to the incidence of various cancers, birth defects and other health problems, Riverside County banned Class B sludge in 2001. Three years later, the county began regulating the use of Class A sludge -- which is treated to remove 99.9 percent of infectious agents.

Greg Reyes, a solid waste enforcement supervisor with the county’s Department of Environmental Health, told The Californian in January that the county hasn’t received a sludge application in the last eight or nine years.

“This city has a map of these county permitted applications sites and there is no evidence to suggest that any sludge applications have occurred since 2004,” Mayor Scott Mann said via email.

Added Councilman John Denver: “We have got to get this all on the table, and then everyone will know there is no unsafe place in Menifee to build a house or live or raise a duck or have a dog or do whatever you want to do. We want the general population to understand that we’re going to insist that if there is any indication -- any -- that something is unsafe, we’re going to investigate it and have professionals be satisfied that there are no problems.

“There will be no houses or improvements where there’s dangerous items beneath the property. There just won’t be.”

Susan Rood, however, is among a group of residents who suspect development already has occurred on land that farmers were once paid to fertilize with sludge. With her husband, Lee, surviving two bouts with cancer, and herself surviving one, Rood is concerned that her family’s health issues are entangled with sludge, an issue often brought up during City Council and Planning Commission meetings.